Chapter 14
Fletcher felt worse than she did after a brunch with bottomless mimosas.
She and Waylon cleared as much distance as they could, leaving the burning estate behind them in a titian blaze.
Grass scratched at her bare legs as they ran.
Images of the afternoon replayed over and over and over again in her head.
Between the blood crusted on her knuckles and the stench of smoke on the wind, her stomach finally waved the white flag into the sagebrush.
Here, under the last drops of sun, while she puked her guts out to the soundtrack of the afternoon savanna with Waylon hovering nearby, she was resolutely certain this trip deserved the gold medal for All-Time Worst Company Retreat.
In the manor, fighting for her life, the panic had been staved off by all the sprinting and slicing and sword fighting. The safari seemed downright serene in comparison. But as the adrenaline faded, every horrifying reality sank in.
Fletcher uncapped a wine cellar Evian to splash her face and rinse out her mouth. Her body sagged against her bones, palms planted in the hard dirt while she willed the world to quit spinning.
“Come on, Wilderness Barbie, we can go—”
“Don’t,” Fletcher said. She couldn’t decide exactly what she didn’t want him to do. Come closer? Speak to her? Existing was pushing it.
“There’s a river down a quarter mile or so if you want to go get cleaned up, and we can set up camp for the night.”
The thought of washing at least three different people’s blood off her skin felt like a privilege too luxurious to entertain without visual proof of said river. Especially since there had been no shortage of bathtubs at the manor they’d been forced to evacuate.
“I don’t want to bathe in a river, Waylon.
” Her fuse had been chipped and chipped and chipped away all day long.
“I don’t want to sleep on the ground. I don’t want to have to wonder if you or Rick or Sheila are going to slit my throat in the middle of the night.
I wanted to curl up in the capybara room and fall asleep on one-thousand-thread-count sheets and wake up tomorrow morning to find out that this whole thing was just a jet lag–induced night terror.
I wanted this trip to be normal, so I could network my way into a promotion, that way I could maybe actually be able to afford a place to live when I go back to the city.
But I can’t. Because all of this is real, and the manor just caught on fire. ”
“At least no one’s chasing us.”
While it was true—Fletcher had briefly spotted the remaining members of the C-suite and Sales darting in opposite directions away from the estate—she wasn’t in the mood to hear it.
Even after the certified shit show of an afternoon they’d had, Waylon managed to sound unaffected.
One hand was shoved into his pants pocket, and the other wrapped around the strap of his camping bag.
All his emotions zipped up nicely behind a Cool Guy Facade.
It spiked her blood pressure. He spiked her blood pressure.
“Me,” Fletcher corrected. “Bertram was chasing me. Yet again, you get off scot-free because you’re Waylon Cartwright and you made it exceptionally clear you don’t want anything to do with this company.”
“Brian did try to strangle me.” Waylon speared onward, apparently content that Fletcher wasn’t going to pass out—or content to leave her there anyway.
Aggravated, she tailed him. “In a fit of passion! Bertram’s vendetta against me was totally premeditated. He thinks an ambitious woman who wants to climb the ranks is more dangerous than you, and you inherited the whole freaking island.”
“And its structures,” he said, bending back the grasses to carve a path forward. “Including the manor. So, when you think about it, I just took a major loss.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry you’ll have to rebuild a wing of the mansion on your private island. Thank god for generational wealth. I would have hated for you to face real hardships. You’re half the reason we’re in this mess anyway.”
“Am I, now?”
It was hard to look as mad as she felt while bobbling on unsteady heels, ankles like a newborn calf.
“Yes. This morning, there were sixteen of us. Now, half those people are gone, all because your dad got some evil, mutant bee in his bonnet that Ratatouille’d him into creating his own personal Hunger Games. ”
“It was probably a tracker jacker then, instead of a bee, huh?”
“What do you know about The Hunger Games? You probably rooted for the Capitol!”
Waylon peeked over his shoulder, smirking even as Fletcher scowled.
“I’m serious, Waylon. I mean, this is—this is—”
Verbalizing it made it harder to breathe. Made it real. Nothing about Lydell felt like it should exist anywhere near reality—not the juxtaposition of the estate’s brocade curtains and grass cloth wallpapers, not the IRL Zoo Tycoon experience, and definitely not a truce with Waylon.
“A disaster,” Waylon said as the banks of the river came into view.
Serpentine blues etched into the otherwise neutral landscape. At this bend, the water was shallow and glistened beneath the late-day glow, but it wound into the jungle, widening and deepening as it went.
Fletcher kicked off her shoes, sludgy river mud squidging between her toes.
She stomped for good measure. “Do you have any idea what this trip meant for me? I get four, maybe five, hours of sleep each night because there’s always insurance to file for the house in Amsterdam or emails to draft to the Jet-Setter Asia team.
My salary’s barely enough to keep my head above water, and what extra money I do have is spent on shitty twenty-eight-dollar Manhattans from your equally shitty bar just to pretend I have a social life.
There is so much instant ramen in my body that if you cut me open, I’d bleed out Maruchan Roast Chicken flavor packets.
And when I get back home—if I get back home—there won’t be a home to go to.
I’ll have to get a job at the department store it gets bulldozed into and sleep in the employee lounge on some horrible leather sofa. ”
She couldn’t help it. She started pacing. Frustration bubbled out of her.
“I came here so that maybe, just maybe, I could have the chance to do what I love at the magazine of my dreams. It was supposed to be different. Fun. A chance to actually participate, instead of looking in from the outside. I thought I’d wake up this morning and eat so much smoked salmon I’d get mercury poisoning.
I thought I’d suntan and shmooze and sip my little drinks without worrying that assholes like you would judge me for having the same taste in drinks as a newly minted twenty-one-year-old fintech bro.
Instead, I had to watch my boss get eaten by lions and send everyone into a feral rampage. ”
Fletcher gulped down a breath. When she finally had the wherewithal to look at Waylon, his lips flattened into a firm line. His Adam’s apple bobbed once, then again. A tint of real emotion cracked through his usual veneer. Unwanted sympathy panged through Fletcher’s chest.
“My boss got eaten by lions,” she said again, quieter this time as the gravity of it settled. “But he was your dad. Waylon, I’m—”
“Don’t say sorry.” He shucked off the tote and his backpack. “It’s fucked-up, but my dad would have loved this, and you know it.”
She could have never imagined the horrors he was subjecting them to now, but Dyer Cartwright had always been a man with a mission. He always had the right cards in his hand and knew exactly when to play them.
Stranding his only son on an island with fourteen rabid employees with no time to grieve, no time to process, and forced to play a role in a game he didn’t consent to wasn’t the mark of a loving father.
Waylon watched his dad get ripped to shreds by a pride of lions that had been imported solely to hunt for sport.
There was nothing un-fucked-up about that.
But that was Dyer. Entertainer extraordinaire. The life—and death—of the party.
“I’m not sorry for him,” she said, daring a step closer. “I’m sorry for you.”
Waylon’s stare hardened. “I don’t need Fletcher Spence to feel sorry for me. I’m used to my dad disappointing me. But you. You shouldn’t even be here.”
Oh.
Days since Waylon Douchebaggery Incidents: 0.
Fletcher shook off whatever residual Midwestern niceties threatened to dismantle her hard-earned career and crossed her arms. “I’m well aware of how you feel about my attendance.
Believe me. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to take off this sensory nightmare of a dress, clean every inch of my body, and pretend you aren’t here. ”
His hand lashed out, wrapping around her wrist. “Fletcher, stop. I’ve been trying to tell you that you don’t deserve to be here.”
Fletcher blinked. Indignance reared in her chest. Spiked and ugly, like a porcupine wearing jeggings. “Wow. Got it.”
“That’s not—”
“No, I think it is.” Fletcher shook herself loose.
“What I’m trying to say is that you don’t deserve this.
Not because you aren’t smart enough or hardworking enough or talented enough, but because you are.
Because this job, this company, my dad was always going to take everything you have and give nothing back.
” His gaze met hers, fierce and unyielding.
Suddenly, she wasn’t sure if she was hot from the sun or something else. “You deserve better.”
A sharp laugh carved its way out. “Is that so?”
For once, Waylon’s tough exterior faltered. His brow didn’t furrow so much as it crinkled, scrunched together like a bag of Doritos crammed into the break room trash can. Fletcher didn’t buy it for a second.
“What?” he asked.
He inched closer, but Fletcher waded deeper. Cool water lapped at her ankles, her calves. “Smart? Hardworking? I seem to recall you had a few other choice adjectives for me the first time we met. ‘Pathetic.’ ‘Embarrassing.’ Ring a bell?”